If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
—Harry Shearer
A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into a passive role. He does not act; he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of mysterious authority and has a firm conviction that “they” will never allow him to do this, that, and the other. Once when I was hop-picking I asked the sweated pickers (they earn something under sixpence an hour) why they did not form a union. I was told immediately that “they” would never allow it. Who were “they”? I asked. Nobody seemed to know, but evidently “they” were omnipotent.
—George Orwell
Can you imagine being forced to stay young forever, watching everyone you know die? How pointless would life seem if you saw that?
—Avery Williams in The Impossibility of Tomorrow